


Hunter's Holiday

by CaffeinaShips



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A bunch of other characters are also included, Bobby SInger - Freeform, Charlie Bradbury - Freeform, Donna Hanscum - Freeform, Food mentions, Gen, Jody Mills - Freeform, Others - Freeform, Pretty much ignores cannon, Set around the time of season 14, garth fitzgerald - Freeform, just a lot of platonic fondness, no romantic relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 22:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeinaShips/pseuds/CaffeinaShips
Summary: The job gets to Dean and he disappears. Sam receives a mysterious note.





	Hunter's Holiday

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever come home from a bitter sweet family vacation and just decide to throw down some fluff?
> 
> Because I have.

Dean had been missing since December 26th. They saved the children in the hospital in Virginia from the Shtriga on Christmas and watched all the parents come to collect their children and bring them home for tearful, relieved, grateful Christmases. It should have been a victory but like so many other holidays it was a palpable reminder of how many family moments they had been robbed of by one monster so long ago. Dean had been irritable the rest of the night. 

When they woke up to set out for the bunker in the morning Dean had announced that he needed a break from hunting and was taking some time off. Like the chivalrous big brother that he is he drove Sam out of town and stole him a car before taking off in the Impala. 

It wasn’t super uncommon that sometimes the job would get to one of them and they’d disappear on some camping trip, or fishing trip, or (in Dean’s case) sex and booze benders. Usually they would only be gone a few days before turning up again a little less cranky and a little more focused. Sam waited a full 2 weeks before starting to call around and see if anyone had heard from Dean. Naturally Castiel didn’t answer Sam’s prayer. 

And now the next day Sam was standing outside the post office staring at an invitation sent to him by Dean. It had a gold border, and limited information on the front. It Said “You’re invited” in big letters followed by coordinates. A date (January 12) and a time (4pm), and a dress code (Dress for the weather). Did they ever dress any other way? On the back Dean had scrawled “Don’t worry Sammy, it’ll be worth the drive.” It looked like it was probably made at staples or something. It seemed that Sam was going to have to steal another car. 

Sam immediately googled the coordinates and found it to be an isolated beach about a third of the way down Florida’s Gulf coast, about an hour above Tampa. It seemed to be away from most populated areas and it was difficult to guess what Dean could be up to in January. 

So Sam had no answers when the next day Garth called.

“What in the Blue Hills is this Sam?” 

Garth had been one of the first people Sam had called a couple of days ago. He was annoyed when Garth had more information than Sam did. Garth had called Dean and Dean had actually answered for Garth! He’d reassured Garth it wasn’t dangerous, but also said it wasn’t a family event. He emphasized that attendance was as mandatory as it could be without Dean actually being able to make Garth go. The conversation left Sam more puzzled. Sam’s current theory was that Dean had been trapped by a ‘Becky’ type and they were going to be ambushed with a wedding. 

Over the next 24 hours Sam received calls from Rowena, Charlie, Bobby, Jody, and Donna. He heard from a couple of hunters that Sam knew Dean would reluctantly trust in a pinch, which is about as well as Dean works with anyone. He also heard from retired hunters Jesse and Cesar. They called to assure Sam they would be in attendance. They claimed not to know what was going on, but Sam got the impression they had a bit more information than they let on, which made sense in order to get them out of retirement. Sam doubled down on his wedding theory but amended who the partner might be. There was nothing any of them could do but wait. Of course everyone was going. Whatever was going on Dean had called them and they couldn’t risk that he genuinely needed them. 

The morning Sam departed for Florida he packed as much variety as he could. Some version of every metal, as many types of bullets as possible, and as many books as he could haphazardly toss in the trunk. He’d spent the last few days completely unable to decide if he was mad at Dean, worried about him, amused, or frustrated. He seemed to be cycling through all the feelings and unable to settle on one for even a few minutes. He wanted to be packed for everything. He wanted to be ready for everything. He had no idea what to expect and it was driving him whackanuts.

Sam pulled up to the beach parking lot at 3:30. It looked empty. Unsurprisingly there didn’t seem to be any tourists hanging around in mid-January. Sam parked the car and opened the trunk. He settled on one iron knife and a gun with silver bullets. The beach in front of the parking lot had several picnic tables with what looked like closed trays you would keep food in. The tables all had coolers under them. There were tiki torches stuck in the ground randomly around the beach. 

Instead of looking at the trays Sam took a walk along the perimeter. He walked along the parking lot and noticed nothing unusual. He poked around the edge of the jetty at the north of the beach but respected the sign to stay off. He worried about his brother but he also worried about crushing sea turtle eggs. He walked along the edge of the water. His heavy boots slogged through the sand, but despite himself the feel of the warm sun and the sound of the lapping waves relaxed his shoulders. He found himself shrugging off his outer flannel and embracing the 65 degree weather. A far cry from Kansas winter. The south side of the beach grew grassy and transitioned to the marsh and swamp that made up much of the landscape around this corner of Florida. 

There was a bathroom building half way down the beach near the parking lot. He assumed he’d find a men’s room and a women’s room, and hopefully no monsters. As he was heading toward the bathroom a practical looking pick up pulled up and Jody hopped out. 15 minutes early for the invite. They hugged warmly and Sam filled her in on his wander about the perimeter. He followed behind her as she meandered toward the aluminum trays on the nearest picnic table. She tipped the lid carefully and a spicy aroma escaped.

“Are you shipping kidding me? This looks like sloppy joe filling!”

Sam resisted the urge to stick his finger in and test Jody’s theory, but he cracked the tray next to it and discovered a huge number of hamburger buns. Sam had no idea what to think, but at least he was now sure Dean was calling the shots. 

A nicer, newer pickup truck pulled in and Donna jumped out. There were hugs all around and they all swapped their non-information. Together they went to examine another tray and discovered shrimp that smelled like they had been cooked with garlic. Jody pulled out a cooler and none of them were surprised to see beer on ice.

“What in the Wet Hay Bale is your brother planning here?”

Sam had no answer for Donna, and a couple more cars were pulling in. Soon everyone was hugging, looking around, asking questions, and getting no answers. In minutes the guest list was assembled.

“I’ll tell you this for sure though” Garth announced to the gathered crowd “There’s raw steaks in that cooler over there. I can smell the bloody things from over here.”

Garth gestured to one of the picnic tables that had been established to have ears of corn in the tray on top. There were general shrugs from the group. Rowena confirmed for the group that she couldn’t sense any magic in the area, and several of the group stomped the perimeter themselves before settling in to wait. 

At 4:20 the Impala arrived, flying into the parking lot, and blasting Led Zepplin’s The Ocean. Dean popped out of the driver’s seat and jogged to the nearest picnic table, and hopped onto the bench. Castiel followed behind from the passenger seat. 

“Friends, family, welcome to our first ever Feast of the Fabulous Wild Men Day!”

There was a moment of silence. Bobby cleared his throat and took a little step forward.

“What in a Seagull’s White Feathery Butt hole are you talking about?”

“Fabulous Wild Man Day! I read about it when we were researching obscure feasts when we were second guessing our Shtriga theory. I figure we are the wildest men on the planet, and we deserve a feast!”

Another moment of silence. The sun and the cool breeze and the gentle waves must be getting to Sam because he thought he might be buying into it. The sun was starting to set, and birds were calling to each other overhead. It was hard to imagine anything he’d rather be doing than having a feast on the beach with his favorite people. 

“Excuse me darling, I can’t help but notice you invited a number of the fairer sex to this manly feast of manly manlyness.” Rowena gestured to Jody, Donna, and Charlie. 

“For my money you women are some of the wildest, most fabulous men I know. But if you’re too delicate for my free beer…”

“Whoah, hey now, I for one have never been too girly for a free drink!” Charlie was already sneaking a beer out of the nearest cooler. 

Dean addressed the gathered crowd again

“Look, we have one of the most thankless, isolated, gross, uncelebrated jobs in the world. It pushes us out of society, and separates us from all the other normal civilians who have quiet normal holidays without having to fight zombie turkeys, or St. Valentine’s ghost, or whatever bizarre monstrocity pops up that day. There’s no dirty S.O.B. covered in grave mud and gun oil day. This weird as it sounds holiday was the closest thing I could find. But hell, some of us are men, some of us are fabulous, and we’re all wild creatures protecting humanity from the shadows in the dark. So tonight at least we’re going to enjoy each other’s company and have a dang feast!”

There was a smattering of applause and some light whooping. Sam surprised himself by clapping too. His brother wasn’t wrong, and a day off does everyone some good. 

The food trays were open and the coolers were dragged out. The tiki torches were lit and Castiel dropped a pile of paper plates on a table. Sam wondered idly how long an Angel of the Lord had been hanging around while Dean planned a beach party. Probably the whole 3 weeks was Sam’s guess. Sam plunked down on a table next to Jody determined to catch up on how her girls were doing. 

When people started to fill up a few untied their boots and rolled up their pants and waded into the water. Sam took his boots off and followed. Feeling the water flowing over his feet while the torches reflected on the water he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so at peace. Hearing the laughter and chatter of his friends and family was soothing to his soul. He wondered briefly if this is what other people feel on Thanksgiving. Probably not, he thought. People probably sat around awkwardly not mentioning Uncle Phil’s ex-wife, or not mentioning the latest politics while pretending to like each other. Fuck That, He thought. I choose this family.

**Author's Note:**

> There's not much to say about this one except that the Feast of the Fabulous Wild Men is on January 12. Most people seem to see it as an excuse to check out sexy guys (and I'm cool with that) but I thought the wild characters we all love deserve a holiday too.
> 
> This fic was for SPNColdestHits The most fun writing challenge ever! This month's theme was to pick a little known holiday. There were points for not swearing, but I couldn't resist one.


End file.
